Been upgrading the mythtv box over the last few months and I think I'm at a point where I can pretty much say I'm done building it to where it might last me until I die. Most notably;
ga-ep45-ds4p w/ Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz
GIGABYTE nVidia GeForce GTS 450

I know, it sounds like overkill for just a pvr but I have multiple tuner cards and do some 'post processing tasks' in real time, now. And holy cow, does that rock!
HD video plays to my TV without a hitch, even while a record is happening.
It can double as a game box, if I'm so inclined, but I just don't get into video games like I used to.

you don't need to tell me about overkill

my main pc is a core 2 quad - 2.83 65W
4GB of ram
i pretty much surf and stream. sometimes i encode from dvd to avi, but not regularly. i don't game much anymore(until diablo 3 comes out). may need to upgrade my vid card eventually, but for now no worries.


. . .

I have a 3.4 GHz P4HT which in essence IS a Dual Core processor. Now as long as you have sufficient RAM to drive your system you are good for a long time. I have 4 512MB RAM in all four slots so I effectively have 1G of RAM for each core. I want to boost it to 4g which is as much as XP can handle.

More RAM is always better! When I built this machine 5 years ago I built it to be competitive and remain so for years. It still is a match for ANY Core Duo and I am not overclocked. If I upgrade my OS to 7 I can breach the 4G RAM barrier BUT I have to deal with a hardware limitation and the cost of PC3200 memory is still ridiculously high.

I want to build on an X85 ASRock motherboard which has 6 RAM slots, Quad Core capable, and with MAX RAM I can get 24G on board which is in excess of need by a huge stretch!

Now power supplies are an issue. If you have a lot of Video cards which are STARVING for power an 800Watt or better PSU is called for. I have seen one SLI computer with 4 video cards and it needed a 1000W PSU to feed it. BUT The computer operated FOUR stand alone terminals for game playing among 4 people. That computer was one WHACKED OUT MACHINE! In all reality though I cannot see a need for more than 400 Watts of PSU for most power users.

So far though my humble P4 can handle ANYTHING I throw at it. I game, I also do some graphics and design work but I really want to do animation. That was why I built this machine.

i was running xp and went to 4gb and it would only see 3gb. if you're going to do 4gb just upgrade to win7.

as for building a new machine, most of the socket 775 is disappearing so you should really look at an i3 or higher.

for the psu, you also have to look at the draw of the processor. some of the processors are 130w. combined with a demanding vid card, you don't leave much room for other hardware if you only use a 400w psu.

i'm hoping that when diablo 3 comes out this system will still be sufficient. i may have to upgrade the vid card, but i'm hoping that the game won't require sli'd vid cards as my current mo-board doesn't have a second for pciex16 2.0. i can't seem to find any more socket 775 boards that do have 2 pciex16 2.0, so if sli is a requirement, i'm probably not going to be able to play diablo 3. i'm not going to build a new pc just to be able to play one game.


. . .

I hear ya, man. My mythbox used to be this ga-8i875 that I'm now using as my mainbox. It did a dang good job at what I threw at it. Games were a walk in the park but socket 478 just started falling behind of what a media box could be.
Now, I can transcode a video in less than half the time it took on this board. I can fullscreen game emulators without a hitch, record 'processing' from multiple tuners happens while the record happens.
The 2x2 cores, 8 gigs o ram and a strong vid card is what the rave/ brag post was about. I've reached a level of performance that I'd dreamed about several years ago.

I now have a dual core processor. I did some wheeling and dealing with the PC man in town. It is a HP Media Center PC m7060n box now. Was checking the specs. It is a 2.6 GHZ Intel on the 775 CPU slot which was an upgrade. 4 SATAs instead of 2 slots. Put the 1TB Seagate SATA in and got the Plextor SATA 880. It still allows ATA (Just one) so I have the 80 GB Western Digital and the Plextor 870 on the master slave IDE ribbon. The box says 2006 on it. I was able to keep my PCI Express on the new Intel for my 1 GHZ Nvidia Geforce 9500GT. The computer guy said the S-Video and three RCA jacks on front are not hooked up. He said the lady before had a different video card that ran the ports on the front of the case.